That means humans have presumably been exposed many times to SIV, the simian immunodeficiency virus, because people have been hunting monkeys for millenniums.
So what happened in Africa in the early 20th century that turned an unimportant monkey disease into one of history’s great killers, 25 million human lives so far?
Confirming that the virus is very old also helps explain why it infects almost all African monkeys but does not sicken them. A disease kills off vulnerable victims, but the host adapts to it.
The new study, published on Thursday in Science magazine, was relatively simple. Scientists tested 79 monkeys from Bioko, a volcanic island 19 miles off the West African coast. Bioko used to be the end of a peninsula what is now Cameroon, but it was cut off when sea levels went up 10,000 years ago.
Since then, six monkey species have developed in isolation on the island, and scientists found that four of them were infected with SIV. The disease must have existed before Bioko was cut off.
AIDS is obviously very new to us. If it had been in humans before the 20th century, it would have arrived in America in some of the 12 million Africans carried as slaves.
Adapted from an article by Donald G. McNeil in The New York Times. Picture by Tim Laman.
Precursor to H.I.V. Was in Monkeys for Millenniums.
ResponderEliminarThe article talks about how old is the H.I.V. virus. It explains that the H.I.V was first a disease of monkeys called SIV, simian immunodeficiency virus. The diseases have been exposed to humans because they have been hunting monkey for millenniums. The infection from monkeys to humans started in Africa .Later on; when Americans caught them for being slaves and them carried Africans to America the disease infected some of the American population. The articles demonstrates this explaining that they found species of monkeys in an isolated ion island which had been isolated for 10,000 years and they found four species that were infected. So, the disease must have existed before this island was cut off.
In conclusion we think that is amazing that H.I.V is so old.
Natalia García and Elena Barrera. B1A.
This article explains how the humans acquired the AIDS through the monkeys. According to the opinion from some scientifics, the disease exists since 32.000 years ago.
ResponderEliminarVery long time ago, monkeys and humans lived together and they had a direct contact in Africa.
In our opinion, the viruses don’t spread for simply hunting, could be more reasons, for example humans makes having intimate relations with the monkeys, or vice versa.
Carla Torner, Adrià Pérez, Raquel Cardoso.
This article talks about a new discovery about the origin of AIDS. Scientists have found that this disease have been in African monkeys during 32. 000 years at least. Humans are vulnerable to this sickness, but not the host (the monkey), who is adapted to the disease, so scientists have guess that the first infected of SIV (simian immonodeficiency virus) were the African slaves carried to America who had contact with the monkeys.. An evidence of the antiquity of AIDS, are the infected monkeys found in the Bioko island, that 10. 000 years ago were a peninsula of Cameroon.
ResponderEliminarAcording to this, the discovery shows that this illness is relatively new for the human specie and that monkeys (who have had the disease during thousand of years) have infected us over the time.
Júlia Rivas
A new discovery has find out that the virus of the AIDS have come through the monkeys.
ResponderEliminarThe disease must had exist before Bioko, actually an island, was a peninsula 10000 years ago.
The new study reflects on 79 monkeys taken out from that island have the SIV (Simian Immonodeficiency Virus). Nowadays, six different tipes of monkeys are infected by SIV.
So in conclusion the AIDS have must existed before Bioko became an island.
Sergi Abajo, Anna Arias, Pol Bisquert
this shows that white anthropologists or scientists could use this monkey to infect black people in yet another effort to control them /kill them This was already proposed in a book over 30 years ago.
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